This invention relates generally to an instruction table, and more particularly to a human readable common instruction table.
Throughout microprocessor development, many different teams have a need for a specific form of shorthand instruction reference table. Typically, each team will maintain its own shorthand instruction reference table tailored to the type of information that the department requires. Quite often, there is much overlap between each of these “sub-tables”, creating redundant effort (both in the table data itself as well as the code/scripts to parse the table), introducing more points of failure (table errors), and reducing validation of the attribute data. Hence, there is a need for a common instruction table that is both human and machine-readable.
Common instruction tables may be generated by a tool, such as very high speed integrated circuit (VHSIC) hardware description language (VHDL). However, the VHDL tables are not human readable, thereby preventing visual inspection as a means of validation. In addition, the use of non-human readable VHDL tables prevents information from being available at a glance. Another drawback to the use of VHDL tables is that they require the VHDL to be written first, thus preventing their use by designers.